In telecommunications industry, short codes and long codes are widely used for the purpose of marketing, advertising, promotions, delivering and activating services and providing Value Added Services (VAS) by Telecommunication Service Providers (TSPs) and third parties such as VAS providers, advertising firms, media companies and business houses. Short codes and long codes are phone numbers provided by the TSPs/operators to the third parties and business houses for receiving Short Messaging Service (SMS) messages and voice calls. Long codes are standard ten or eleven digits phone numbers provided by the TSPs/operators both for commercial and personal usage. The short codes are special phone numbers usually having four to five digits that are provided by the TSPs/operators at a higher price for commercial/business purposes. The short codes may also have additional extensions to the standard four or five digits. For example, “5XXXX”, a short code, may have an extension such as 11 to form an extended short code such as “5XXXX11”. Both short codes and long codes are used by customers to avail services such as mobile services, setting ring-back tones, ordering ringtones, television programs voting, seeking additional information and other VAS services by sending SMS messages and calling on the short codes and the long codes.
Conventionally, TSPs provide short codes and long codes to the third parties and business houses that require the users to interact via SMS messages for availing services. However, most of the users drop out from the SMS interaction after first few SMS messages. Further, interaction via SMS messages and voice calls on short codes and long codes used by third parties is chargeable at premium rates rather than the standard SMS and voice call rates thereby reducing the number of users availing services associated with long codes and short codes. This results in loss of revenue for the third parties and businesses who have acquired the long codes and the short codes from TSPs for promotional and marketing purposes.
To overcome the above-mentioned disadvantages, communication via Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) channel is a viable solution. The USSD channel provides a simple menu using a real-time and session based connection. The connection allows a two-way exchange of data thereby making it interactive and easy to use as the user is required to key-in few characters to send a response via USSD. Moreover, communication via USSD is usually not chargeable and only the services availed/activated via USSD are chargeable to the users. However, TSPs do not provide USSD codes to the third parties and business houses to facilitate communication with the users via USSD. Further, even if the third parties and business houses are able to procure a USSD code from a particular TSP, it is very difficult and sometimes impossible to procure the same USSD code from other TSPs. The third parties and business houses therefore cannot avail a common USSD code for marketing and promotional purposes that can be used by the users belonging to different TSPs/operators.
In light of the above, there is a need for a system and method for providing USSD services using a cross-operator number. Further, there is a need for a system and method that can initiate the USSD services based on one or more service requests received in the form of SMS messages and voice calls via one or more telecommunication channels. Furthermore, there is a need for system and method that can provide customized USSD menus to one or more users irrespective of the TSP/operator providing telecommunication services. In addition, there is a need for a system and method that can integrate with the existing USSD services.